Schumer pushing to make funding easier to get for hemp farmers

CORTLANDVILLE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — “You can see the little flowers. They’re starting to form on here and these in about four to six weeks, will be the size of my forearm,” Allan Gandelman said.

After two years of hard work, Main Street Farms in Cortlandville is nearly ready for its second crop.

“And then after that, we’ll harvest all the flowers and that’s what we’ll process into oil,” Gandelman said.

That’s CBD oil to be exact, a product growing in popularity and AllanGandelman has 40 acres worth.

“We sell to thousands and thousands of people,” Gandelman said.

But getting this far financially hasn’t been easy. They have been fighting the stigma of home, which is a relative of marijuana. Gandelman says many banks still see this plant only as its cousin and that comes at a cost.

“It’s hard to totally quantify because the industry is growing so fast, but we’re talking about hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Gandelman.

Loan options are limited and even opening a bank account can be touch. Gandelman tried five times before a local credit union came in to help. Now, Senator Charles Schumer is hoping to help.

“I will be pushing federal regulators to quickly issue guidelines so that banks and financial institutions will issue loans and give services to all industrial hemp-related activities,” Schumer said.

Main Street Farms will dry 40 acres of hemp when it’s harvested in mid-September, but now they can only process 20 acres. The hope is by changing these banking guidelines, they’ll be able to secure more money and expand their processing and meet their needs.

Gandelman said, “This would have ripple effects across the whole manufacturing industry, but also through the 500 farmers in New York right now who are growing hemp.”